Mark Meadows bypasses FBI to appeal for release of info linked to FISA abuse report
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., is getting impatient with the FBI in his effort to root out misconduct in the early stages of the Trump-Russia investigation and went over Director Christopher Wray's head to try and move things along.
In the balance, the GOP investigator said in a letter to top Justice Department officials last week, is the American public's ability to fully understand DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's upcoming report on alleged surveillance abuses.
In the letter addressed to Attorney General William Barr and Horowitz, Meadows pushed for the unredacted release of five pages related to British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who compiled an unverified dossier on President Trump's ties to Russia that was used by the bureau to obtain the authority to spy on a member of his campaign, Carter Page.
Meadows cited a Freedom of Information Act legal battle over the disclosure of documents from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec that followed her meeting with Steele on Oct. 11, 2016, 10 days before the first Page warrant application was submitted. Notes taken from that meeting by Kavalec, obtained and released by conservative group Citizens United through open-records litigation, cast doubt on Steele's reliability. Kavalec wrote that during that meeting Steele admitted he was encouraged by his client, which was the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, to get his research out before the November 2016 election, signaling a possible political motivation. Kavalec's notes also show she believed some of Steele's allegations were false.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mark-meadows-bypasses-fbi-to-appeal-for-release-of-info-linked-to-fisa-abuse-report